Tag Archives: rich

I’d like to know what my readers think about this. Should Black People be drawn to this movement? Should we consider Black unemployment rates and how many Blacks were affected by the housing crisis (Ponzi Scheme/Gambling in my opinion.) as motivation? Here are a few recent takes on it.

Bonus Question: Is it just me or does the lack of Tea Party involvement or even a thumbs-up or two in the direction of the protesters make it seem even more as if they are the Party of the Rich and of Tax Loopholes? Oh my bad “Job Creators”. LOL! Don’t you love it when people try to reclaim and rename what is and has always been. No no, not slave owners…”Antebellum Job Creators”. Sad.

Lawrence Otis Graham gets the question all the time. “Are you bougie?”

Photo: Lawrence Otis Graham Web site

Lawrence Otis Graham is touring the country for a series of interviews for his upcoming book, ‘The Our Kind of People 800 Register.’

RENEE’ HANNANS HENRY/Staff

June Dobbs Butts (left) talks with her niece, Carol Ann Jackson Miller, about their family history and Lawrence Otis Graham’s upcoming book, ‘The Our Kind of People 800 Register.’ On the wall is a picture of Butts’ mother, Irene T. Dobbs.

June Dobbs Butts (left) and niece Carol Ann Jackson Miller> are not fans of Graham’s attempt to create a black social registry. ‘My father wouldn’t waste the money to buy this book,’ Butts said. ‘There will be some people who will be impressed by this. But so what? It is all empty.’

For the uninitiated, the word is derived from “bourgeois,” and it’s gained currency in the black culture, both as a compliment or as an insult for those aspiring to a higher class.

As a black man with degrees from Princeton and Harvard who uses “summer” as a verb to explain what he does on Martha’s Vineyard, and who has written extensively about society and class, Graham is used to the question.

“Do I think that there are people who call me that? Yes,” Graham said. “But bougie is middle-class, and I have risen beyond that. I would be lying if I described myself as bougie.”

No matter what you call him, Graham knows how to spark a debate.

Graham is touring the country for a series of interviews for his upcoming book, “The Our Kind of People 800 Register.”

It will be the first national directory of the richest and most socially elite black families and people in America.

Graham said the book is a natural sequel to his “Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class,” which looked at the history and traditions of the black elite. He said the new book, due this fall, is an attempt to do what whites have done, which is identify and catalog their social elite.

“The first book talked about the lifestyle,” he said. “But many people said, ‘You neglected to mention the so-and-so family in Charleston.’ So, let me tell you who they are and how they got their money. I am going city by city, family by family, credential by credential.”

“I know it is going to upset people, but I have an important goal in mind, ” Graham said in a recent interview. “This is about more than finding the 800. I am also trying to address the negative images that seem to pervade the media and mind-set. The only black success stories we seem to want to embrace are athletes, comedians and entertainers.” Continue reading →